Rabbit Cult, a bunny metal duo that spices electronic pop metal with kantele, shot to fame last year as one of the most interesting new bands in the country, and the duo consisting of Salla-Marja Hätinen and Marianne Heikkinen continue to surprise with their single Bunny Anthem. It is also the first song that the Bunnys have produced themselves. The song was mixed and mastered by Oscar Nilsson at Studio Bohus, who has previously worked with The Halo Effect and the Haunted, among others.

“Bunny Anthem is the first song that Marianne composed for Rabbit Cult. I had just broken my collarbone in a car crash, and when I went into surgery I said that Marianne could write us a song in the meantime. Marianne introduced the song to me by saying, ‘This will never be released,’ and I had no idea what to expect, as I had never heard Marianne’s demos before. But I was immediately on fire with this,” says Salla.

So Marianne had to change her mind – fortunately so. The strong contrast between the melody and the lyrics was created quickly, and it was that ironic sense of danger and contradiction that took the song to a new level.

“In retrospect, Bunny Anthem perfectly encapsulates everything that Rabbit Cult and bunny metal represent to us, but when I made this song, I was both excited and a little ashamed at the same time. I wondered if it was possible to make a song like this. And I remember how big a threshold I had to play the demo of the song to Salla, I guess to alleviate my shame I said ‘this is a joke then’”.

Rabbit Cult’s already released singles Cute AF and Pink Rifle have already taken the duo to, among other things, warm up Lordi at the monster shows in Finland, and in May Rabbit Cult will be seen at the new Capital Of Metal export event for Finnish metal music in Tavastia, Helsinki. The summer’s shows also include a performance at the Hellsinki Metal Festival.

Rabbit Cult is:
Salla-Marja – Vocals, kantele and whatever else is needed at any given time
Marianne – Drums, percussion, bass, guitar, keyboards and backing vocals

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Today, the Finnish metal duo Rabbit Cult released their new single Pink Rifle, which blends playful irony with a world of dark menace. The captivating combination of electronic pop metal and kantele continues the soundscape familiar from the band’s first single Cute AF. The song’s lyrics explore themes of power, predation and innocence. The production was carried out in close collaboration with Markus Kaarlonen (Poets of the Fall).

“This song was the result of a long process of refining – it was rewritten about ten times before it found its final form. The arrangement was thoroughly thought out, and in the end the entire structure was renewed by increasing the tempo and adding new lyrics,” says the band’s multi-instrumentalist Marianne Heikkinen (drums, percussion, guitar, bass, keyboards, backing vocals).

“The original composition was really progressive and complex, and full of time signature changes. I was already sure it was ready, but then Markus, who we produced this with, suggested that we could even just keep the chorus to four. The next night I woke up playing a new guitar riff for this – even though I don’t even know how to play guitar. In the end, only a few lines of the chorus and half of the original riff in the intro remained,” recalls Salla-Marja Hätinen, who is responsible for lead vocals and kantele.

“I was also involved in writing the lyrics for the first time. We sought inspiration from texts written by men in the last millennium, which sound questionable at best in this day and age. An example of this is Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire, originally written for Elvis, which directly talks about his desire for a little girl. Fortunately, times have changed a little!”, Marianne comments.

The pop metal duo formerly known as Saruru changed their name last year. At the same time, the band’s visual side was also updated. The band, which declared itself Rabbit Cult, weaves together the matriarchal roots of Kalevala mythology and the recognizable sound of the Finnish national instrument, the kantele.

Rabbit Cult is not just a band, but also a story. A story that began in a time when modern-day states were not was still there, and explorers wrote on their maps Terra Feminarum (=Land of Women), which centuries later became an independent country called Finland. The Rabbit Cult continues the tradition of this female-led, secret society.

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